Alphabet Route into the Conrail Era

[Trainmanjim55]

According to information obtained from a 1983 Chessie System freight Schedule book, and Official Railway Guides, the Alphabet Route remained in operation at least in modified form into the Conrail era, with Norfolk and Western, P&WV, WM, and CR making up the route. It eventually faded away as a through route by 1983 when the Western Maryland disappeared into the B&O. The creation of Norfolk Southern Corporation by that time also put an end to it. Chessie did, however, keep its joint WM-CR portion of it going for a time.At least that is what the freight schedule book I have says. Schedules are found in my staple bound booklet, ANATOMY OF THE CHESSIE SYSTEM, which features this and other sample freight schedules.

[wm3798]

The Alphabet Route may have existed on paper, but as the smaller independent lines that made it work became parts of larger regional systems, there was no longer the incentive to keep it going. Why would Conrail want to perpetuate the short haul from Lurgan to Philadelphia or Allentown when it could grab the traffic farther west and carry it as a single line haul? N&W may have had more of a hand in perpetuating it, because this was the only way they had access to the Northeast before the Conrail disassembly in 1999. And really, only now is NS gaining access to New England with its recent deal to upgrade some Guilford/Pan Am lines between New York and Massachusetts.

The WM's role in the route began to evaporate with the elimination of its own track between Cherry Run and Connellsville. And really, it had fallen off considerably by the early 70's anyway. Some of the symbol freights were dropped or consolidated with other trains, and after the Chessie inclusion in 1973, the WM was a dead man walking anyway.

Although the ICC required that Chessie maintain a separate sales force to solicit traffic for the WM, Chessie limited their efforts to local on-line traffic, and all the valuable interline traffic was given to the B&O staff to handle. Again, if you can pick up a car in St. Louis and move it all the way to Philadelphia via the B&O, what's the point of handing it back and forth internally, then to a competitor for the last leg of the trip?

The part of the WM that survives today from Cherry Run to Lurgan is the only route that Chessie really wanted to spare. They retained the Dutch Line from Hagerstown to Baltimore to keep N&W (and later Maryland Midland) out of Baltimore, then they downgraded or abandoned the rest of it, then treated the Lurgan sub as a secondary route to the northeast, retaining its trackage rights over the Reading to Rutherford primarily for coal movements, I believe to this day! It kind of surprised me when they broke up Conrail that CSX didn't get that route, as much as they use it, and in light of the fact that the old PRR route remains intact between Harrisburg and Hagerstown for NS to use.

[JeffWarner]

Just to touch on the last paragraph that Lee wrote, NS uses the Lurgan line as the ONLY line to Hagerstown in modern times... Coal trains and container trains are the most common, but a few mixed freights as well. The old PRR/CV trackage is so bad, it's only used for locals (at least north/east of PennRoad in Shippensburg). You occasionally see CSX power on coal, but all the others have NS power.

Matter of fact, there is talk that the old CV will be removed from LEMO to a point where it "rejoins" the Lurgan branch outside of Mechanicsburg (just after they both cross under PA 581). As I understand it, this is a "definite" IF they ever get the cut off in to go from the Lurgan straight to Enola Yard without going across the river and looping back via the Rockville Bridge.

Jeff